Postcards From Paradise

I was raised in a cosmopolitan spot, caught amidst the politics of men

Where we sit, shit, frolic in dirt, smoke chronic herb and wish for things

Picture rickshaws, gaudy with yellow and black trimmings

Three wheels hydroplane, against the gravel

Through overcrowded gullies, swellin' like pregnant bellies

With monsoon rains, corrugated iron roofs, sway in the violent winds

The sediment stinks, like rotten lettuce left since spring

My ethnic settlements, evidence, decadence lives

Brown folks nude playing, bathin' shittin' drinkin' prayin'

Layin' in the same puddle, riddled with mosquitoes, the size of bald eagles

Breedin' malaria, no vaccine, ain't no quinine

We deep inside hysteria, outside of history

On the fray, lost as a paisley patterned teardrop

In the arabian sea, off the coast of bombay

[hook]

Something like love, something like hope

Something like beautiful, something i wrote

But postcards from paradise rarely sent to me

Postcards from paradise weren't meant for me [x2]

Songs play, ghulam ali's urdu ghazals wailin'

From a pastry shop, buzzing with flies, over stale things

A sepia hued veil slips over the sky

'allah u-akbar' a cleric's voice cries

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Atop the dome from a moghul influenced minaret

Across the street from a temple where drums beat to shiva's steps

Upanishad texts, holy men in tunics bless

The destitute, prostitues, what's the cost of truth?

A lucid clear eyed prophet sits on my stoop

His brown hair locked in a basket like strands of joot

The man's a mute, it's a wonder his mandibles move

Hurling curses, reciting verses, they say he sensed a feud

Of hindu's murderin' muslims and vice-a-versa

Diego, my neighbor, got his neck slit with a sickle

In the name of a sacred purge, yeah

Later that summer, my cityside was swept with murder

Religious fervor

[hook]

Something like love, something like hope

Something like beautiful, something i wrote

But postcards from paradise rarely sent to me

Postcards from paradise weren't meant for me [x2]

So two gods can't live in the same alley, side by side

Religious riots, firebrands scar a black night

Flashback to a past life

Fatehgunj housing sphere's overlooking thatch and shoddy made dung huts

Shantytowns sprout then, stick out like gout

Politicians talkin' 'bout 'forward progress now'

So these beautiful folks had their huts burned to the ground

But genius lies in all things simplified

They'd take cow shit, mixed it with grass, a few twigs

Exposed to the sun, it hardened once plastered to a few bricks

Add some sweat and you have a makeshift apartment

Follow the stark stench of humans, fume and disease

Where my peoples get by simply on ritual beliefs

It's steeped deep in what the british did before they flee

Left more than just english literature, cricket, whiskey and tea

Psychological damage, famines, but we managed

Cause even a rose grows through cracks of concrete

And a lotus floats hope in the stream of the ganges

There's love here, but hate too, for that you can blame karma

And nah, we just ain't deepak chopra and our famed martyr

So why would you wanna travel any place farther

You can come-leave-reassured, your world's a safe harbor

So here it is, the picturesque postcard you chase after

Complete with taj mahal's, camels and snake charmers